After Dawn is the Morning
by candygirl7114
Summary: Just a short scene I submitted to my writer's craft class. SPOILERS: It is one year later and Hazel is recovering from Gus' death.


Chapter 1: After Dawn is the Morning

The train was mostly empty. I had a booth all to myself; it included a simple table and red-cushioned seat. It was mid-morning, rush hour was over and everyone had gone to work or school. The sun shot a square of white light on the seat next to me from the window. I didn't have class today, which was one of the high-lights of college life; I didn't have to go to school everyday.

After all, time didn't stop because one person died. I had to go to school, to live life, and hopefully heal from my heartbreak.

I sat on the red-cushioned seat, doing nothing. My portable oxygen tank was propped up against the seat next to me. It made the familiar whirring noise, so loud compared to the quiet stillness of the train. The clear breathing tubes that protruded from the top of the machine connected to my nose, they allowed me to receive oxygen from the tank so I didn't die. I had Stage 4 Thyroid cancer, with metastasis in my weak lungs. I was supposed to have died already but for some reason my feeble lungs hadn't given up yet. All thanks to the experimental drug Phalanxifor, my very own team of doctors, and my trusted sidekick Philip (the oxygen tank).

It was as if nothing had happened since last year. I still had cancer, I was still going to die someday (probably at a younger age than most people), and I still went to school. Everything and nothing was the same from last year. I went to college and I read books, I even watched America's Next Top Model with my parents like I did before it happened. The only difference was inside me, and no I'm not talking about my useless lungs. I'm talking about my heart, which was now broken and raw, it pounded so hard in my chest it hurt to breathe.

I listened to my ragged breathing, still tired from my walk to the station. The train began moving and I finally settled into the rhythm of it. I stared out the window, not bothering to take out the book I planned to read on the ride to the city. Like always, my thoughts were consumed by him. It was laughable that before I met him I thought I had depression. But now I knew that whatever I felt before was nothing compared to the hollowness and crushing feeling I felt inside my body.

My only fear had been my inevitable death and the effect it would have on my parents and friends. But now a new fear had cropped up after Gus' funeral; the fear that I would never recover from his death. I tried not to think about the black sea that I swam in, about how hard it was to swim against the tide, and how the waves continually whipped me across the jagged rocks along the shore. My sadness consumed me, and it took me a few minutes to pull away from it.

One of the hardest parts about my old boyfriend, Augustus Waters', death was the fact that I had to explain to everyone. Besides the fact that he wasn't on earth presently, my only grievance nowadays was talking about my past, which was very difficult. Meeting new people, especially at college, reintroduced the pain of losing him. And, somehow or another, everyone around me knew about it. There wasn't a day while I was in public that I wasn't asked about my dearly departed boyfriend. Sure, I thought a lot about his death but I didn't want to talk about it.

I concentrated on what was happening outside of my mind. The train which would take me to the city. The train continued to rumble underneath me, but it was a calming sound. The morning was still bright and new, I tried to look on the positive side of things. There was a reason I was going out of my way to the city on my day off. I wanted a certain book that had come out today. Unfortunately, the book wasn't very popular and it hadn't yet marked the shelves of the standard book store near my house.

The book was called _After Dawn, _and it was the fourth book in the series, _The Price of Dawn. _The series was based after Gus' favourite video game with the same name. There wasn't any particular reason I wanted the book other than the fact that it was _his_ favourite book. I liked the series well enough, even if it was about blood and guts. What it came down to was the cold truth, that Gus would never be able to read the next book in the series, so I continued to read it in his stead. And that one fact threw me back against the rocks and far away from the shore.

I got off the train when it stopped, moving slowly down the steps as I held Philip. A few passersby gave me curious glances; it was to be expected when out in public. It wasn't everyday that you saw a teenage girl with breathing tubes sticking out of her nose. I walked down to a bus stop and waited. A few minutes later a city bus pulled up next to the stop and I climbed on slowly. The bus driver was silent as I paid for the ride, and I sat down on an empty seat near the front.

When I got off I entered a giant shopping square, my sneakers stepping on shiny brown tiles. Stores lined the sides of the square and people loitered about everywhere. There were a few benches and tables and beds of purple flowers. The bright, early afternoon sun shone down on me. I hoisted my bag up on my shoulder and began pulling Philip gingerly along the cobblestones. I headed toward a large building that was unmistakeably a book store.

The sign on the store read simply, _The Bookstore _in shiny black letters. I entered the shop and made my way to the new arrivals section. I had been here before, with my mom. Since the book I was looking for,_ After Dawn_, had just been released this morning I knew the bookstore in my town wouldn't have it until a few days later. But I had been waiting on this book for a while, and I didn't want to wait when I could easily obtain it by going to the city.

The store was bigger than it looked on the outside. Despite its homey exterior the shop was new and glossy inside. Neat bookshelves lined up and down the store, with a few reading chairs here and there. At the cash register a cashier sat looking bored. I trudged down the aisles, as fast as my oxygen tank would let me (and slow enough so I wouldn't keel over from lack of breath.) I approached a wide bookshelf, a sign on the top read new arrivals in red letters.

I scanned the shelf until I found the book. The book was new and shiny, a thin paperback with a simple cover. The main character of the book, Staff Sergeant Max Mayhem, stood under a rising sun. A fake sticker was on the corner of the cover, in green writing it said "The fourth book in The Price of Dawn series, based on the popular video game, The Price of Dawn!" I held the book for a moment and then turned toward the cash register to go pay for it.

As I turned I bumped into someone that had been standing next to me. It was a boy around my age.

"Sorry," I said. I stepped back, tugging Philip to the side.

"Oh, it's alright," the boy said. He glanced curiously at the oxygen tank and my breathing tubes.

"Okay," I answered, I moved away from the book shelf.

"Are you getting After Dawn?" He asked me with a sudden smile, pointing at the book in my hand.

"Yep."

"Me too! I skipped school to come and buy it," he said cheerfully. "My name is Michael."

I glanced up at Michael, he was cute in a boyish way, with shaggy hair and a zipped up hoodie. Instead of making an excuse to get away I stood for a moment next to him. Something stopped me from leaving.

"I'm Hazel," I introduced.

"Cool name," Michael said. "I'm guessing… you've played the Price of Dawn?"

"Yeah I do, and I've also played the audio game version." I answered him. I don't know why I told him that. Why was I having this conversation?

"Ha ha, why would you play that?" He laughed.

I laughed too, but I didn't answer his question because it would be a little morbid to reply that one of my best friends, Isaac, was blind. That was why I had played the audio version of the game. I thought about Isaac for a moment, I would need to tell him about the latest installment in the Price of Dawn series later.

"So…," Michael started to say something but he trailed off, looking embarrassed.

I recognized right away where this conversation would be going. I froze up and became silent. How do I get out of this? I should've left the moment I got the book, instead of starting a conversation with a stranger. I suddenly felt guilty and sad, I couldn't do this.

"Did you want to…?" He asked.

I turned away immediately, so fast I tugged my breathing tubes out of my nose. They fell to the ground and I dropped to my knees to get them.

"Whoa!" Michael exclaimed, he made as if to help but I had already stood up. I pushed the nubs back into my nose and hurriedly breathed in the air.

"I have to go," I mumbled. I felt bad about leaving.

"Nice meeting you!" I said briskly and then I walked as fast as my oxygen tank would let me to the cash register. I slammed the book down so abruptly the cashier jumped.

"Sorry," I muttered a reply.

I paid for the book and left just as quickly. When I got outside I looked around for Michael but he was nowhere in sight. Maybe I had freaked him out? Or maybe he wasn't going to ask what I thought he was about to ask? I made myself shrug it off and boarded another bus to go home. I felt a wave of relief when the train pulled out of the station.

In the end, on the train ride home, I cried. At first I didn't know why I was crying, a cute boy asking me out shouldn't be this traumatic. But I soon realized that I was crying for Gus, and for me. The hot tears that rolled down my face were for the love I had shared and experienced with my dead boyfriend. The guilt I felt earlier was because it had only been a year or so since his death. The sadness I felt was because I didn't want anyone else, I only wanted Augustus.

I wasn't some school girl anymore that liked when a nameless boy doted on me. Every time anyone flirted with me or laughed with me I thought immediately of Gus. I thought that it would be so great if it was Gus I was sharing these moments with instead. It wasn't fair to the people in my life, but I couldn't help feeling this way.

I let the tears fall because it would be useless to try to stop crying. I hated feeling sorry for myself but there was no way I could stop the feelings. My first love had died, and I was not okay. Even after a year my thoughts were plagued by him; his smile, his words to me, and his too-soon death.

My heart was scarred and broken and I was afraid it would never heal. I didn't want to forget Gus. I didn't care for another fling or romance with someone else. Even if Gus would have wanted me to move on, I couldn't. I only wanted Gus, not anyone else. After all, it had only been a year.

I was no longer a grenade. I somehow knew that I wouldn't die anytime soon, I didn't have to worry about my parents and friends attending my funeral just yet. The fear I had had for so long was fading. It wasn't me who had been the grenade, it had been Gus. The only fear I felt now was the fear of never letting go. I was afraid I would be this way all my life; crying and feeling sad all the time. I didn't want to hit the rocks again, or feel the cold waves against my body. What I wished for the most was to get to the shore.

Maybe someone would eventually throw me a raft, I don't know. But for right now the waves would keep moving and I would keep struggling against them. In time maybe the waves would get weaker, or I would get stronger against them.

I sighed as the reverberating of the train turned into a familiar drumming noise in the background. I took out the book and opened it to the first page. It was crisp and white, and the smell of new paper was dominant. I started to read the first line.

"Only time will heal the wounds that I have suffered," the main character, Max Mayhem, began the first chapter.

I hoped that this would be true for me as well.


End file.
